Ranked-choice voting primer for Berkeley voters

The city of Berkeley recently posted this handy guide to ranked-choice voting, and Berkeleyside is in turn sharing it with our readers. Ranked-choice voting (RCV) only comes into play when the top choice does not receive more than 50% of the votes. Worth noting: RCV has only happened twice in Berkeley out of the 12 council races since 2010: Kriss Worthington in 2010 and Lori Droste in 2014. See the county’s iPhone app to learn even more. A video of the process also appears below.

Learn how ranked-choice voting works to help guide your decisions for the Nov. 8 election, when several Berkeley City Council seats and the mayoral race will use the method if no one candidate gets a majority of votes outright.

Ranked-choice voting, which is sometimes referred to by its acronym, “RCV,” allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference, and eliminates the need for a separate, run-off election.

Questions? Ask them in the comments section.

Voters can — but aren’t required to — indicate their first, second and third choice for an office. Some voters choose only one top choice. If a candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, they are the winner.

If no candidate receives more than 50% of first-place votes, then the ranked-choice process is used:

First, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated.

Second, voters who selected the eliminated last-place candidate have their votes transferred to their second choice. If they didn’t choose a second choice, they do not have a vote in the second round.

Third, votes are re-counted to see if there is a candidate with more than 50% of the vote.

If no candidate receives more than 50%, the process of eliminating the last place candidate and transferring votes is repeated until a majority winner is declared.

In Berkeley, the 2014 District 8 contest provides an example of how ranked-choice voting has been used. Alameda County also posts all ranked-choice voting results for 2014, 2012 and 2010 for Berkeley, Oakland and San Leandro, the three cities in the county that use this runoff method.

Ranked-choice voting is sometimes called “instant run-off voting” but that does not mean the election is decided on election night. All ballots are processed and counted before a race is decided.

The use of ranked-choice voting does not change any other part of the voting experience. Voters may continue to vote-by-mail or at the polls just as before.